The VICE Guide to Dating Rich Girls

As long as you realise she only keeps you around to annoy her parents, it's gonna be fun.

Rich girls are hot because their mums are hot. But they're also insane because their dads are inbred sociopaths with Nazi fetishes. All of this makes dating one for a short period of time an excitingly weird mixture of prescription pills, naps, crazy arguments, depressing music, room service, therapists, tattoos that cost more than cars, jet lag and guestlists. It's gonna be fun!

They won't stick around forever, however, as they're genetically pre-disposed to breed among their own kind. But as long as you understand you'll never be anything more than just a stopgap to them, you're in with a shout.

MEETING THEM This is all about timing. There's a point in every rich girl's life where they stop accepting Daddy's handouts and start nicking it from his wallet instead. This is when you strike. This is your brief window of opportunity.

The first step is identifying the bars/ clubs that these girls frequent. One of a rich girl's favourite activities is to go and look at other rich-people-who-are-pretending-to-be-poor playing in bands. A good way to find these is to check your local listings for who's playing in your area, cross-reference band names with the internet, and look out for names like Charlie or Rupert or Frederick. That's where you'll find gold.

WINNING THEM You have nothing to offer a rich girl other than being slightly less fortunate than they are, so wave your pedestrian lifestyle around as though it was an alternative lifestyle choice. You've gotta play it like Basquiat or Leo in Titanic; wear fingerless gloves, squint a lot, and say things like "Mister, I meet a lotta people with money, but whadda they got to show for it?" Obviously saying something like that while looking another human being in the eye with a straight face is gonna be pretty difficult, but you'll get used to it. Just bear in mind her entire concept of rebellion will be gleaned from Dickens novels and James Franco's Twitter.

The urban equivalent of this is equally potent: Get some lines in your eyebrows, claim to be a small-time coke dealer, wear a lot of CP Company and basically inhabit all of her parents' nightmares. At the very worst, her dad will probably attempt to pay you off. If he does, shout, "I don't need your money!" and then steal his iPod.

HER HOUSE Yes, her flat isn't shit. Get over it. The most important rule here is to never EVER ask how much her place is costing her. I know it's fun to work out in your head how many times more expensive it is than your own rent, or to figure out how many hours you would have to work to pay the rent for just one month (approx 500, BTW) but don't. a) Her parents are paying for it and she has no fucking idea, and b) Just fucking be cool. Act like you're so accustomed to this kind of luxury that you haven't even noticed she's using a remote control to operate the curtains. Just shut up, sit back, watch her Sky.

THE HELP Unless you're a horrible, horrible human being, dating a girl with a maid is gonna make you feel like the worst person on Earth; like the conscientious son of a plantation owner. Every ounce of your being is going to want to take your own plate over to the sink or say things like "Don't worry, I'll get it."

But you know when a lion rips apart a gazelle in a nature documentary and Attenborough says something like "although horrifying to us, this is just par for the course in the wild"? Think about it like that. And if you're still upset about it, just remember that the Filipino maid you feel so sorry for lives in a bigger house than you (the outhouse at your girlfriend's).

MUMS Firstly, you're gonna want to sleep with her mum because her mum is going to look THE EXACT OPPOSITE to your mum. She will smell like whatever frankincense smells like. However, she will understand what you are straight away; which is just "a phase". She might even regale you both with a story about how she once dated a "punk rocker with a motorcycle" before "meeting Daddy", which is essentially a nice way of saying "Lily is marrying Sebastian, and your days are numbered, dickhead."

DADS The dad is worse. He understands all your disgusting urges because he lives on a diet of anal sex with Polish women that get delivered to his hotel. The other problem with dads is that rich girls and their fathers flirt to the point of obscenity. This may make you feel weird, but imagine how much it fucks up these two weirdos.

FRIENDS Two things. Number one: Compared to her school friends, your mates are gonna look like House of Pain. Number two: She won't be hanging out with her school friends any more, she'll be hanging out with a touring collective of models, drug dealers, guys who own guitars, guys who own clubs, alternative pop stars in their early teens and really old guys who used to know Joe Strummer. You will hate them. Your own friends will try very, very hard to screw all the models, though.

DRUGS Rich girls have been taking drugs since they were three. If you don't think you can be outdrunk, out Xanaxed, out coked, out speeded, out everythinged by a 16-year-old, you're wrong. Heath Ledger, John Belushi, River Phoenix – I guarantee they all died trying to match rich girls. No normal person, raised on shit weed and wine, can compete with a person built from neurosis, privilege, pressure and those slimming pills made from ground-up Chinese babies.

IMPORTANT! Remember, part of them WANTS to get caught. So when they're racking up lines on a Subway sneeze guard and it seems like it would be funny to join in, don't! They're gonna get bailed. And you're not.

SEX Well, the first thing to know about all rich girls is that they lost their virginity at a terrifyingly young age. This means that they're all mad. The reason they all have sex so young is that they all want to be models and are surrounded by scumbags who've had their morality exploded by Mexican Adderall and are used to getting what they want to the point of psychosis. Basically, these young, beautiful women have been fucked up. And that means you'll probably have to have threesomes and put up with her walking around with only a bra on while her male Swedish friends talk about their literary projects. Speaking of which...

PRETENSION You're also going to have to put up with this. You're going to have to put up with your rich girl reading Knut Hamsun on her roof deck. And she'll know male models, and Jesus, have you any idea how desperate those guys are to let the world know how stupid they aren't? These people never ever grow out of this, so you're stuck, I'm afraid.

POLITICS At some point in the relationship, despite her bohemian pretensions and transgressive art project, you'll realise that she is a Tory. Listen out for tell-tale opinions like, "Well I don't see why I should have to give away all my money to other people," and "Daddy didn't go on the dole, he went out and started a company / formed Duran Duran."

RUINING YOU Yes, it's going to destroy you. You'll never be happy with a nightbus ever again. You might not quit school/ your job, but you'll become so bad at it that it'll probably quit you. Unsustainable drug habit? Yep! Ditch all your old friends? But of course! Start wearing £4,000 denim jackets? WHO WOULDN'T?

THE BREAKUP You knew it was coming from day one. But God, you don't wanna give up on this. You'll cry and bitch and get addicted to heroin, but you'll never be able to convince her to stay. Her type don't care too much about people. Her family buy land; yours plough it. Sorry mate, now you have to date someone who doesn't even have a linen closet.

Like it when we get all instructive and domineering? Have it some more, now!